Five Years Later: Things I have learned
I remember, shortly after my son's death, someone saying that it will get better in about five years. He died suddenly of bacterial meningitis a little before his fifteenth birthday. Five years out seemed like a long time, as I was struggling to brush my teeth and get through each day. But it seemed reasonable. It was a sort of relief to not expect anything to get better anytime soon. At the time I was following some goals I set for myself, and I put on a post it note on my bathroom mirror. It said, "Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Eat food. Drink water." If I could do that I was surviving. Then a few months passed and my husband and I found a local child loss grief group and went to monthly meetings where we got a view into our future. Five years later seemed like such a long way off, but I had read it as a milestone in a few books and heard it from parents. So, now it has been almost five years, and I don't feel very different than after year three or four. I tried to think of what I have learned in the last five years about grief and anything that makes it a bit more manageable.
1. Sometimes you need to set aside time for grief.
I remember soon after my son died hearing about a mom who would go into her bedroom with photo albums and put on her daughter's favorite music and cry and cry. She would set time aside to do this intentionally. Her teenage daughter had died three years earlier, and it seemed like a crazy thing to do. Who needs to make themselves cry? I also remember a story I read in a book of a dad who would come home from work and cry in his room from 5:30-6:00 every day. He could make it through the work day knowing he had time to grieve later. These strategies didn't make sense to me at first. Now I realize that sometimes the emotions build and build under the surface. As you keep going on with your daily life, you don't allow time for the hard emotions. As they build up, sometimes they just need to be released, and doing it when you have the time and space is okay. It might work well for some people, or at some times.
2. Realize when something is just too hard and avoid doing that thing.
There are things you just don't have to do. You don't need to go to your child's class graduation ceremony, even if they will say his name. You don't need to have dinner with people you don't know with children the same age as your child. You don't have to travel back to the place where they died, or eat their favorite dessert, or camp in the same tent where you spent your last night together. Whatever it is you that might make you feel miserable, just don't do it. A friend of mine from grief group debated going to her son's finacee's wedding. It had been five years since her son's death and she had stayed in touch with his fiancée. She had met someone else, and was getting married, and my friend thought she could handle it. She thought it was the right thing to do. But it wasn't the right thing for her and she left crying anyway.
3. Bottling up emotions is fine, and necessary.
I was raised with those 1970s new age beliefs that you need to express your emotions, you shouldn't bottle them up or they will explode on you later. Whoever had that idea didn't have emotions as difficult as the death of a child. The are North American indigenous tribes where, after the death of a loved one, you are not allowed to mention their name except for once a year on the Day of the Dead. I think these traditions were created to help people continue on with their lives, their tribes needed them to be functional. In our modern life, we also need to function. We need to respond politely when people tell us about their children, or ask how we are doing. We need to be able to see our child's favorite food in the supermarket and keep going. So, we need to bottle up emotions. Call it bottling them up, or letting them flow through, whatever it is you are recognizing them and not dealing with them at the moment. That's okay.
4. Very few people will ever understand, and those people that do might not be the ones you expect.
It is hard to find people who understand, and even harder to find people that know what to say and do to provide support. Often I don't know what to say and do, so I'm not sure how others should know. Some good friends fall apart and create a distance between you. They can't discuss your loss and will avoid you. Others will keep coming back; they will ask the hard questions; they will find ways to let you know that they are still thinking of your child, that they know you must still be in pain. Treasure those people, and let yourself find new friends that are there to truly listen even if you aren't ready to talk. Treasure the people that still mention your child's name and share a memory with you. It doesn't take much, just a little recognition means a lot.
5. It does get easier.
You do learn to live with the new situation. You stop expecting the text or call, but you don't miss them any less. In the beginning I remember not even wanting it to get easier. Getting easier means you have accepted that this horrible thing happened. Getting easier means you have loosened your connection a bit with your child. But, it happens. It happens for survival's sake. I does get easier. More time goes by between the thoughts of you child. The trauma of their death becomes less important than the good memories of their life. And, your parenting instincts dull. The recurring, "Where are they? Shouldn't they be here? Are they safe?" faded after a few years. Your brain's habits eventually know that your child is gone and stops creating a fight or flight response as you realize again and again that they are still gone. Whether you can become at peace with your new reality or not is another issue, but at least their being gone becomes something you can live with and still breathe.
6. Trauma returns.
If you child's death was traumatic, and I think all childrens' deaths have some traumatic moments, those memories are difficult to deal with. They can come back with unknown triggers, like a smell or a shadow, or with known triggers, like an anniversary. Traumatic events create a flood of adrenaline and hormones into the blood stream that makes your body categorize events incorrectly. Your brain has a sort of timeline where events get tagged, and a highly traumatic even doesn't get filed away in the right location. It floats around, coming back again and again, unsure where to settle. Talking or writing about the actual details of the traumatic event can help your brain to date stamp the event and reduce the random flashbacks. The memories will still come back, but not as frequently and not with the same intensity. I wish the good memories were as clear as the traumatic last few hours of my son's life.
7. Blaming yourself is normal. Accept it and let it go. You did the best you could with the information you had. All parents have the role of keeping your children safe. I have sat through meetings listening to a mother blame herself for standing to close to a microwave when pregnant and giving her daughter cancer, or a father blaming himself for not teaching his son to be more careful crossing the road when his son was killed crossing the street at age twenty-two, or for letting their daughter take a dangerous job, or for not forcing them to stay on their medications, or for not detecting their cancer earlier. No matter the cause, we will find a way to blame ourselves. It is normal. We have the belief that we are not only responsible for the survival of our children, but that we can control it. It is a false belief that we have the ability to keep them safe at all times. It isn't possible and it isn't our fault that they died. But, I sometimes find it easier just to accept the guilt. If only I had sent him with more money to the fair so he wouldn't have shared a drink; if only we had gone to more doctors to see if there was any underlying problem; if only I had known about that immunization and it had worked; if only we had gone to the hospital earlier and they could have done something. A thousand if only don't get you anywhere but a bout with insomnia. Try to accept the blame, or deny the blame, and just let it go as a normal parenting emotion. You took on the job to protect your child and you feel badly that you were not able to. There's nothing that you can do about it now.
8. Celebrations are still hard. Find a strategy if you can.
It has been five years and I haven't found a way to deal with holidays or family gatherings without my youngest son. We have tried brining a small photo and lighting a candle. We have tried setting aside a plate of food. We have tried a moment of silence. And we have tried doing nothing. It all is not enough. It all feels wrong. But, if you can find a strategy that works for you, then definitely continue it. I remember talking to a family whose son had died seventeen years prior, and they had a small golden angel statue that they always put on the table in memory of their son. No one said anything, but everyone knew that it was in his memory. I have thought of coming up with something similar, but haven't been able to figure it out yet. Lately we have done nothing and then feel badly afterwards, so I can't say that's a great strategy.
9. It can be hard to listen to other people talk about their kids. Other kids growing older is still hard, five years later. Especially if they are the age of my son who died. There are those kids I really do want to know they are okay, but please don't complain about stupid stuff that ours never got the chance to do. I remember the year after my son died being in the lunchroom at work and sitting next to someone who was complaining about their kid growing out of their jeans so quickly that she had to buy more. I just got up and left the room. I don't usually mind when people talk about their children if I knew them, but it would be nice if they realized that at the end of every sentence comes, "But Lev never had a chance to do that." To think that you can talk about other children's milestones without also thinking about the milestones that never got to happen is insensitive. It's best just to mention it, and realize that you are lucky.
10. It is worse when people don't mention his name.
This idea of not wanting to make us feel bad, not wanting to remind us is ridiculous. Please, please, please, if you are thinking of my son who died, just mention it. If you wonder how he died, please ask. If you seem to remember my having two sons and now wonder where they are, just ask. Share your memory. Say their name. It brings them closer.
11. Having other children doesn't make it okay to have one die.
This is a big one for me. Many times when I share my feelings, and say how hard it is to miss Lev so much people respond with, "But at least you have your other children." Or they say, "But isn't it a gift to have Liana," the little sister he will never get to meet. Yes, I agree it makes it easier, it must. I have talked to parents who have lost only children and it is harder, they do have a difficult time finding their way as a parent without children. But that doesn't make it so easy just because you have surviving children. It helps, for sure, to have somewhere to put your parenting urges. I'm sure it is a thousand times better to have other children than to lose your only child. You have somewhere concrete to funnel all that love. But, the grief is still there. I think it is just as strong when it comes. Lots of things make the day by day life easier - having a stable job that you like, a spouse, friend and family support, all those things help, too, but no one ever mentions those. It's always – "but you have your little one," as if the death of her brother is not also a part of the story. It would be too much to put on her plate to make her solve our grief. She is her own person and it's not fair to put the role of grief absolver on her. She brings amazing joy and happiness into our lives, but it doesn't make it okay to have Lev be gone.
12. The resilient mind avoids getting stuck, respect it. Sometimes I think I'm a bad person because in the middle of crying or being very sad about Lev my mind will wander and next thing you know I'll be thinking about needing more socks, or wanting a brownie. I used to think that was pretty awful, to trivialize his death by not being able to hold the thought and instead spending as much time on the mundane. But, in the last five years I have learned to let it go. I figure my mind does what it needs to do to keep my mind and body functioning. If my mind doesn't want to stick to a solid thought about Lev, that's probably a good thing. Just accept it.
13. Find others that understand.
This was a big one for me. Finding other people who have also lost a child was very important, and it is something I miss where we are currently living. Sometimes I will meet someone who lost a sibling or spouse and we can have some deep conversations about it, but nothing is as nourishing as hearing other people's stories, talking to someone who has been through something similar. They just seem to get it. They understand that ups and downs and don't expect you to be "better."
14. Let the emotions flow through like a river, a surging wave flowing through.
This is one I am trying to get better at. I remember reading the book "Mindful Grieving" and it talked about letting the emotions flow down the river. It is hard to do at times, but has been the most helpful piece of advice.
15. More time is more time without your child.
Don't expect it to "get better" any time fast. Don't expect the grief to go away. I found that family and friends want the grieving person to be okay, to be back to their old self. But it never really goes away. More time is more time that they are gone, and it will always hurt, just a bit differently. Someone once described it to me like having a large rock in their pocket, always. It becomes a comfortable weight, and sometimes you reach in your pocket and rub the rock to soothe the pain or anxiety.
16. Recognize triggers, anxiety and develop strategies to deal with it. It is often hard to deal with triggers because it often takes a few times to recognize the trigger. I didn't have much anxiety after my son died, just sadness, and a little tension around calendars and seasonal change, but not real, heart racing, almost fainting anxiety. Then, having another child produced some anxiety, especially if she ever got the slightest bit sick. But it wasn't until she was almost two that I began to get some real anxiety. It first happened in a toy store, looking for a gift for a birthday party. It took me a little while to figure out what it was, but I think it was a toy that reminded me of buying presents with my two boys when they were little. Sometimes the awareness of time passing can create anxiety. I can be overwhelmed by the deep understanding of how long it will take for our little one to reach the age of our son who died, of how long ago it was I last saw that toy and that he is now gone forever, of the true length of the fifteen years he was with us, of how many years are probably left without him, of how many years he has missed out on – the intense and true awareness of the passage of time can be overwhelming and anxiety producing. I took a yoga for anxiety course and learned some strategies that helped with anxiety. Breathing, and being aware of how every part of your body feels, like a body scan can bring one's thoughts back to the here and now instead of cycling into anxiety. Walking very slowly, a walking meditation, feeling every step on every part of the foot is a similar exercise that helps being the breath and awareness back to the current reality. And, then avoid a trigger or prepare for it beforehand can be helpful.
17. Loss is loss and it all hurts. I do believe that losing an older child is one of the most difficult losses to deal with, but after five years I am able to let go of the comparisons a bit. In the beginning I would obsess more on how lucky someone was if they had time with their child to talk about what was happening and to say goodbye. I thought they were so lucky to have that opportunity. I thought it would be easier if the child were older and had already moved out of the house, or if they were little and had fewer years of memories. I thought suicide was worse, and we were lucky to have another son that we were close to. I thought losing a spouse or sibling was very different, and not as bad, but they have other complications that can make it just as difficult or more difficult. I had little respect for those who were very upset about the death of a pet and tried to get me to console them, or the death of an older parent who had had the time to say goodbye. But, after sitting with other parents who lost babies, or two year olds, or two children, or an older teen, or an adult child, to suicide, car accidents, fire, and drawn out illnesses I finally came to terms with the idea of it just all being awful and the need to justify, compare, judge or evaluate the depth of pain in a certain loss became irrelevant. I am able to sympathize with being distraught over the death of a beloved pet. I understand the pain of losing a family member of any age or association and recognize that each persons pain and processing is different, difficult, and complicated.
18. Get outside. Nature is healing. When I feel a little anxiety building, or grief building, I find it very helpful to be in nature. Taking a walk in the woods reminds me of my place in the universe, and the fresh air can be very calming. In the first year after our son died I never really wanted to do anything, but I knew I felt better if I did, so my husband and I made up a pact that if one of us suggested to do something, or if a friend invited us to do something we would say, "Yes," and do it, unless it is something that sounds truly awful. So, we would go for walks; we would go to the woods; we would stop and cry if needed. And, then we keep walking and being outside. It still helps me. Any sort of nature, whether it is a garden, a lake, the forest can be healing. Or, find something else that is healing and brings some peace to your heart. Find it and do it often.
